NOVEMBER 12, 2007

Brawn to Honda

Ross Brawn has been tipped as a possible recruit for Honda Racing F1 for some time and there are reports than an announcement will be coming today with Brawn being named team principal and Nick Fry staying on as chief executive. It is not clear how the two roles will be combined but it will mean that Honda will have a heavy-hitter from F1 in a position to get the team moving in the right direction.

Brawn is credited with masterminding the success of Michael Schumacher at both Benetton and Ferrari and when Brawn's talks with Ferrari broke down Honda was the first name on Brawn's list. Fry and Brawn were in Japan last week and it is believed that the deal has now been done.

Fry will now concentrate on developing the team's business and marketing and managing the relationship with the Japanese and that will leave Brawn in charge of the day-to-day running of the team.

For Honda it is a sign that the company understands that it cannot win with the ways it was using and that, perhaps, the dismissal of Geoff Willis a couple of years ago was a mistake.